Be Quiet, Maria by Kirsten Debear photos by Laura Dwight

When I first picked up this book I thought that it might be a good tool for teaching children about how to deal with children with specials needs and that are different from them. For some reason however, I didn't like it much. I did like the idea of having actual photos for the pictures in the book. I wasn't a fan of the way the book was written. I know that it is intened for younger children but I found it almost boring and it took a lot of effort for me to finish the book. I guess it would be a book that would require discussion because I don't think a children aged 4-8 would understand why Marina would shout and scream and why Moria would get scared and cover her eyes. That might be hard to explain to a child at least for me. It would provide a good starting block. I just don't know how to explain what Cerebral Palsy and Down Syndrome are to such young kids. It does show the idea of acceptance

I was looking at the book and the design was unique. First, the title on the cover is in a rainbow. Then when you keep looking through the pages, there are sentances that are highlited in different colors to stand out. A seond thing that makes this book just a little bit different is that all the pictures are in black and white. I am not sure why that is but it is unique to children's books today which are covered in color. Another thing that I noticed was that all the pages are different colors, but none of the colors are bright.